“Second star to the right, then straight on until morning.”

Tag Archives: People

Democracy, as conceived by politicians, is a form of government, that is to say, it is a method of making people do what their leaders wish under the impression that they are doing what they themselves wish.

Thanks for asking if we wanted them, government of Canada and thanks for doing the homework on them before you forked out the cash, OUR cash. Let’s hope someone kept the receipt….

Full-body scanners are waste of money, Israeli expert says

A leading Israeli airport security expert says the Canadian government has wasted millions of dollars to install “useless” imaging machines at airports across the country.

“I don’t know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747,” Rafi Sela told parliamentarians probing the state of aviation safety in Canada.

“That’s why we haven’t put them in our airport,” Sela said, referring to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, which has some of the toughest security in the world.

We are entering a “new era”, as they say. Sam is moving up to the middle school now, his first year. His friends in the UK have already had a year at secondary school, I think. So, once again, he’s the new boy…. Holly is excited to be going back. She’s on her own at school again for the first time in a while, a couple of her friends have left for different places, something we thought of doing, but with our current uncertainty, feeling it was kind of pointless to do so.

Bedrooms have been rearranged, stuff has been disposed of, unused items removed, all in readiness for the new term.

A couple of nights back, we took the kids to one of the opening exhibition games for the Westside Warriors (shouldn’t that now be the West Kelowna Warriors?….), tickets were $5 each, so we figured it was worth a night out.

Their opponents were the Penticton V’s. Let’s hope they get better. I’m not a huge follower, but, their performance was a bit lacking, although, they did come to life in the 3rd period, to pull back 2 goals, final score 5-2. The shots on goal tally told the real story, well over half as many as the Vee’s.

Yesterday, we headed up to Armstrong, to go to their fair. Clouds were grey and growing as we arrived with the skies opening jst as we found a parking spot. None of us had rain coats and the numpty himself, was in just a t-shirt, despite being told by both of his parents to grab a hoodie, as we left. Luckily, as we finished our sandwiches and coffee, under cover of the back door on the Jeep, it stopped and the sun came out.

There were the usual fairground rides, along with the rodeo’s and races, petting zoo’s, animal stalls, dog shows, music stages, a hall of what resembled and could easily be described as “the shopping channel on tour” and loads of food stalls. You’d think people were going hungry….

The favourite, for us, was the Chuck Wagon Racing, with what we know to be Shetland ponies, battling it out. And by crikey, can they move!

As we were ill equipped to deal with the rain as it started to come down, we headed back to the car and headed home, missing out on the rodeo finale, which was a shame, but, maybe next year….

Other than that, there is a definite feeling of waiting for something to happen in the TheBoomerverse camp at the moment. Jobs are waiting to be heard about, having been applied for and a new business idea/venture is on the cards, after a trip to the Armstrong Fair, along with a strange plan for a domed dwelling. We are in a kind of limbo at the moment, as we wait to see if our future is still here, or whether we are again, preparing to move on, something that we’ve been saying about and meaning to do since we got here….

Not a huge difference to this afternoons shot, but it is clearing slightly, although through the afternoon it has been see sawing backwards and forwards. If you look carefully, of click on the photo to get over to Flickr and see a larger version, smoke is starting to billow up from behind Goats Peak Mountain, heading over to Peachland. And if you look really close, you can see the 3 helicopters hovering above the smoke.

I’m still trying to get some shots of the Fintry fire. If anyone know a good site I can link to or recommend, it would be much appreciated. From what we’re hearing, it’s really got bad this afternoon, doubling in size in a matter of hours and expected to get much worse.

A reader has asked me about sorting out a Google map of the area, which I’m going to have a crack at. Any advice, greatly appreciated!

I hope everyone is OK. We’re getting there, slowly, but it’s not over yet.

The Talent Show arrived today. A few weeks of practice, all came down to this morning….

A little nervous as she started, it was her first time singing on her own, in front of a crowd. It’s always been with the choir, or on the stage with the whole group. So today, she had to put her nerves aside…

The level of concentration was intense, as you can tell!…. it was first time in front of a crowd for me, in nearly 5 years. I was hoping not to fluff it too, and hence put her off….

In the end though, the practice paid off. As we played, I noticed a few teachers and parents in tears! Even the principle came over at the end and said he was “welling up with tears” as we played. And he’s a big guy!

A “job well done!”, as they say. We wanted her to shine and she did. One mum came over at the end to say, “We didn’t know Holly had such a great voice. We do now!”

That’s it then, I’m off to get a new mixing desk this weekend. “The Star” has a bunch of her own songs she wants to record now and make her own CD. What Pandora’s Box have we opened, I wonder….

The team have been doing pretty well so far. They drew their first match, although they were winning 2-1 after losing the entire game, only for the ref to overrun by almost 10 mins and the other team equalising. Oh well, that’s soccer I guess…

But the next match, in Kamloops, was a win, 5-1, with “The Tank” not scoring, but beautifully setting up his team mate on 3 occasions.

Then, last weekend, another 5-1 win. We were comfortably up by half time, so, looked good.

And then panic set in, as I turned to the missus and she uttered the dreaded phrase, “Oh no! Go and tell them, go on!”….

He’s been on about going in goal for ages and you could see as he called out to us from the other side of the pitch, cheeky grin on his face, that he was determined to give it a go. He’s good at being an ice hockey keeper, but a soccer goalie is not what he’s cut out for.

Luckily most of the action was up the other end, but he did make a couple of good saves and didn’t do too bad. But, it was the longest second half yet….

Unbeaten so far then, they seem to be getting a lot better as we go through the season. We’re looking forward to some rematches coming up over the next week, to avenge the IceBreaker Tournement we played a few weeks back….